Tipsters: Show Us Your Proof!

There are literally hundreds of betting advice services out there. Some advise backing, some laying and some both. More often than not there will be a glossy sales page followed by a results page showing how you’d have made a healthy income simply by following these advices. But should we believe their claims or should we investigate further?

I hope the majority of you would want to investigate and get some kind of confirmation of results before subscribing. So, how do we get proof?

Personally, I’m always keen to see some kind of betting statement that will back up the claims made, however, this is rare and to be fair I doubt I’d be putting my Betfair P&L page on view for everyone to see! The next best thing is a free trial and many tipping services will offer this, but there are a number that won’t and in this case I’m always a little suspicious. In the event of no proof and no free trial, the next best thing is a money back guarantee. Any service failing to provide any of these things is best left well alone (as I have found to my cost!).

One such service that doesn’t offer any of these is Lay365, and there is a very good reason for it! Take a little look at the results on their website and you may very well be quite impressed – I know I was. The service is based on giving you one lay a day at odds below 4.5 and they claim a 92 – 93% strike rate. Any service that could run to this could very well be a licence to print money! The strike rate is achieved as the vendor is allegedly an on course bookie who gets information from connections, trainers, etc. as to how a particular horse is likely to run. Oddly (and I know this from my time as a subscriber – yes I was a tad foolish once upon a time!) this particular tipster, known to subscribers only as Betmaster, seems to lay a horse (normally second favourite) when he’s had ‘inside’ info that the favourite will run a blinder. More often than not, the selection was second favourite to a heavily odds on favourite which obviously raised some questions regarding the validity of the ‘information’. Worse still, on more than a few occassions, this second favourite would win after being well backed prior to the off. The fact that they became gambles before the off raised even more questions regarding the information.

Possibly my biggest gripe about this service is the odds quoted on the website. They all look great, all below 4.5 (although the sales blurb does say they’ll always be under 4, but we’ll gloss over that small error), however, what they fail to do is quote the odds in the correct format. For example, if a selection is quoted as winning at odds of 3.2, this is actually 4.2 as they have knocked off the point representing your stake! Add into the equation that the odds quoted are very nearly never available and often double the quoted prices then things are beginning to look a little shaky for Lay365! To be fair to them, they get around this by saying that the odds quoted are available at the time of sending the email. I agree that occasionally I got my bet matched at the same odds, but normally only for small stakes.

So, the moral of this story is do as I say and not as I have done in the past! Always try to get a free trial (preferably a week minimum), failing this the very least you should look for is a money back guarantee. If you can’t get any of these things, my advice is to walk away – or drop us a line with the details and we’ll endeavour to test them out on your behalf.